We love cheese. We eat it daily: mozzarella, feta and goat cheese are favorites.

They’re also loaded with saturated fats. So one of our 2011 goals is to look for satisfying substitutes.

When we had lunch at Mai Cuisine, a creative New York-area sushi bar-and-restaurant chain, we didn’t have to look far. We discovered Tofu Caprese, which has become a new favorite low-calorie, lowfat appetizer, side or snack.

Mai has cleverly substituted tofu for mozzarella. (Tofu is sometimes called “the cheese of Asia” due to its physical resemblance to a block of farmer’s cheese.) It’s delicious, and it’s also vegan, helping us with our environmental goals to eat vegan two days a week. (If you don’t know how animal-based foods contribute to global warming, here’s the scoop.)

While cheese has protein, it has a lot of saturated fat. An wee ounce of mozzarella (made from the milk of cows or water buffalo) has less fat than other types of cheese, but that’s still 6g, including 4g saturated fat. And don’t think you’re “doing good” by choosing part-skim mozzarella: It saves just one gram of total fat.

On the other hand, tofu, which is pressed from the curds of soybean milk, is a highly nutritious, high-quality protein that has much more protein per ounce compared to meat. It has no saturated fat, is filled with calcium, manganese, with a good amount of copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, selenium and zinc.